"The Good Pope": John XXIII shaped church here

BY JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 4:24 pm, Sunday, July 7, 2013

Former Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen: He was youngest U.S. bishop when Pope John XXIII convened Second Vatican Council to reform the Catholic Church. He took its lessons to heart.

Former Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen: He was youngest...

Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, at prayer service for victims of gun violence. A shrine to Pope John XXIII in the cathedral bespeaks influence of the "good pope."
Photo: LINDSEY WASSON, Lindsey Wasson

Fr. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral, at prayer service...

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

Pope John XXIII became a visible part of life and worship at Seattle's St. James Cathedral last September, with dedication of a striking bronze shrine created by sculptor John Sisko. But the "good pope" has really been a presence for more than 50 years.

John XXIII, pope between 1958 and 1963, will be canonized by the Catholic Church in December, along with successor Pope John Paul II.

John Paul II was a vigorous 58 when elected, determined from the start to be a "big scale" Pope, as author Tony Judt put it in his book Postwar. John XXIII was 77 when elected in 1958 to succeed the austere, remote Pope Pius XII, and was dubbed a "caretaker pope."

Instead, the "good pope" called the Second Vatican Council and set the Church to a process he described with the Italian term "Aggiornamento" or bringing up to date. "I want to open up the windows of the Church, so that we can see out and the people can see in," John XXIII said in announcing the Council.

The Council shaped two people who helped shape the Archdiocese of Seattle, in ways still visible today.

Raymond Hunthausen was two months on the job as bishop of Helena, Montana, when the Council began. At 41, he was the newest, youngest bishop in Rome. Michael Ryan was a young Seattle priest studying in the Eternal City.

Hunthausen would move up to become Archbishop of Seattle. Ryan would serve as his diocesan chancellor, and defender and advocate when a regressing Vatican investigated the Seattle archbishop. Today, he is pastor of St. James Cathedral.

The "good pope" did open windows of the Church. Like Pope Francis today, he used the word "I" rather than the imperial "we" in expressing opinions. He did not deliver stern edicts from the Throne of Peter, but famously said: "We are all made in God's image, and hence we are all Godly alike." Francis is voicing similar sentiments, even about atheists.

As Vatican theologians drafted his landmark encyclical, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), John XXIII reportedly told them: "I am the son of simple peasants. Write this in language that they might read it."

Hunthausen and Ryan took the spirit of "aggiornamento" to heart in this unchurched corner of the world.

A forerunner to the papal lifestyle of Pope Francis, Hunthausen moved out of the Archbishop's mansion on First Hill and lived simply at St. Thomas Seminary in Kenmore. He would often spend weekend hours on a large tractor-lawn mower.

He bonded with a young, oft-jailed pacifist theologian named Jim Douglass who was protesting location of the Trident nuclear submarine base at Bangor. Typically low-key, Hunthausen paddled a kayak in an anti-Trident protest.

The Church should not become "verly reliant on the power of law and discipline," Hunthausen preached.

He was a shepherd who, inspired by the Council, urged his flock to think, saying: "The Council and the gospels tell each one of us to be responsible to discern as we can in the spirit of love just what God is asking us to do."

How very, very different from famous words of Boston's authoritarian Cardinal William O'Connell: "When I ask you to do anything, trust me and do it."

The words got Hunthausen in trouble. He was investigated for such sins as allowing gay Catholics from the group Dignity to close their annual conference with a mass at St. James Cathedral.

The Vatican brought in a young, orthodox bishop named Donald Wuerl, bestowing on his authority formally stripped from Hunthausen.

The laity in Western Washington loved their bishop, and rose up in his defense. In the rarest of moved, the Vatican backed down, sent Wuerl packing to Pittsburgh and restored Hunthausen's powers. He was succeeded by another "pastoral" leader, Archbishop Thomas Murphy.

John XXIII was pope for only five years. He left a lasting impact in fields from peace to social justice -- the common good is "the supreme criteria in economic matters" -- from saying mass in the vernacular rather than Latin, to stripping anti-Semitism from liturgy.

In recent years, sadly, a more authoritarian Holy See has tried to roll back that legacy. Icy aloofness has replaced engagement in many dioceses. Orthodoxy has become a key criteria for naming bishops, resulting in less able men dubbed "keystone cardinals" by the late priest-sociologist Andrew Greeley.

The enforcer of long ago, Donald Wuerl, is today cardinal-archbishop of Washington, D.C. And Michael Ryan, who would be leading a large diocese in any competently run church, remains a beloved and much-listened-to Seattle pastor.

But . . . Catholics in these parts remain assertive and restive. The legacy of John XXIII, the Council and Archbishop Hunthausen is a "flock" that refuses to heed the three "D's" -- discipline, dogma and docility.

Current Archbishop, J. Peter Sartain has been charged by the Vaitcan with purging America's nuns of their "radical feminist tendencies." But hundreds of lay people have joined "Support the Sisters" demonstrations on the steps of St. James.

A 91-year-old Hunthausen returned to St. James last September for dedication of Sisko's sculpture of John XXIII. Word got around, and he was greeted by a packed house. "Both the Church and this parish reflect his remarkable vision of the Church," Ryan said in his sermon.

The vision of John XXIII is also reflected. Hopefully, Pope Francis will provide it with a dose of Aggiornamento.